


(ask for my name a million times and) i'm still yours.

by cafemints



Series: from: eri [3]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Short One Shot, baker yunho, hongjoong as a dad, i still dont know how to tag omg, im crying as we speak, unbeta, yunho as a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafemints/pseuds/cafemints
Summary: Three cupcakes. One strawberry bavarian. One venti cup of americano.Every Friday of every month, with a bright and hopeful smile, with a 7-year-old child in his hand, Hongjoong visits the same bakery again and again, greets the same man named Yunho again and again, and hopes for the same thing again and again.Three cupcakes. One strawberry bavarian. One venti cup of americano. Name? Hongjoong.Maybe this time, he will remember.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong
Series: from: eri [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646638
Comments: 22
Kudos: 189





	(ask for my name a million times and) i'm still yours.

**Author's Note:**

> [♡]. . . for my fav jongsanhwa oomf [dija](https://twitter.com/sunhwalight) thank you bub for sending me this cute prompt !

“How’s school today?” Hongjoong asks as he tries to catch up with the little child running to their car, her little hand in his. The February breeze is blowing through her dark, long hair and through her red scarf that it falls on the floor. Hongjoong has to stop in his steps to pick it up, has to run after the little girl again after seeing her trying so hard to unlock the car door.

He then clicks on the key, unlocking it. Then, she nearly stumbles trying to hop on the shotgun - her favorite seat on a Friday. She says it’s easier to climb out of the car when she’s next to the driver’s; all she has to do is to push the door open and jump out of it, as she once explained.

Hongjoong only laughs at her as he walks to the other side. He unlocks the door for himself and climbs in. After a while, he finally starts the car and sets it off to the road.

“Are we going to the bakery today?” the little girl asks, stars in her eyes, twinkling in excitement as her arms hug around her little blue bag.

It’s a Friday. It’s not a surprise to Hongjoong that she expects the both of them to visit the same bakery again - the one from down the street, a few blocks away from their apartment; the one in color blue, the one which stands out among the other buildings surrounding it.

It is their favorite place in the world, as the little girl (who is right now swaying her legs back and fro) has always described it to her friends from school and even to her teachers. It is very obvious with the way they come there every Friday as soon as Hongjoong picks her up from school. They love it so much that Hongjoong is already so familiar with the way to go - he turns left, goes straight past the field, follows the horizon. He knows his way home.

“You didn’t answer me first,” Hongjoong reminds, eyebrows raised, eyes on the road before them.

The little girl looks to the older and tilts her head, curious. But then, as soon as she remembers, her face brightens up and begins to speak. “School’s okay! Cheonsa gave Kai a flower from the garden,” she tells briefly. “Are we going to the bakery today?” she repeats.

Hongjoong chuckles. “Why would Cheonsa give Kai a flower?”

“Because she adores him,” she responds right away only to ask the same question again, “Are we going to the bakery today?”

“Adores him, huh?” Hongjoong lets out another chuckle before he nods and steers the wheel to the left, entering a street they usually don’t go through. Apparently, Hongjoong has something else in his mind. “And sure. What do you want?”

“The usual!” the little girl replies with a tone of certainty.

Hongjoong smiles as sweet as the taste of the strawberry bavarian he is starting to miss so much. “Alright. But, we’re stopping over somewhere first, okay?”

And where they are stopping over turns out to be a flower shop, someplace a walking distance away from their favorite place. Hongjoong parks the car by the pavement and tells the little girl to just wait in the car as he doesn’t want to waste any time. It’s already past 2 o’clock in the afternoon; he doesn’t want to come at a later hour. 

So, Hongjoong makes sure he is quick enough to pick the flower he desires. In the end, he decides on a red gladiolus - a flower that symbolizes honor and faithfulness, a flower that signifies remembrance.

After he wishes his silent prayers with his hand gripping tightly on the flowers, he goes back to the child waiting in the car. He takes her with him as they walk past a few stores and finally to their favorite place - the one in blue color, the one that stands out among all the other buildings surrounding it, the one he calls home.

The little girl is beyond excited. With full force, she pushes the door open and runs her way to the counter with the biggest smile. Hongjoong follows her from behind, a flower in his hand, and a nervous smile.

Yunho. That’s the name of the person behind the counter and behind his nervous smile. And Hongjoong knows it so well even without reading it from the name tag hanging from his blue shirt. He also knows that his blue hair has slightly faded from how it was since last Friday. His chest also feels so light whenever he sees his pink lips tug up into a bright smile, whenever he sees that he is happy and he is well - that’s one of his every prayer.

“Hey, beautiful,” Yunho greets the girl as soon as he sees her, elbows on the counter. And this short and simple greeting has caused an even bigger smile on her face and an even more hopeful on Hongjoong’s visage.

“Daddy!” she yelps enthusiastically. This has caught the blue-haired boy behind the counter in such a surprise that he starts to laugh breathlessly while Hongjoong nervously and quickly picks her up and carries her in his arms as he tries to reprimand her.

“Your daddy is here!” Hongjoong says in somewhat a whisper. But, the little girl doesn’t listen to him. She never does. And it is proven as soon as she takes the red flower from her father’s hand and willingly hands it to the blue-haired boy.

Yunho widens his eyes, a hand on his chest. “For me?” he asks in a high-pitched tone. The little girl nods yes, but Yunho still takes the red gladiolus, the flower that signifies remembrance, quite hesitantly. He eventually bursts into soft giggles, one that makes Hongjoong’s heart flutter. “She’s so cute. What’s her name?” he asks as his eyes turn from her and to the red-haired boy.

Hongjoong smiles at him. A sad one, actually. And he tries his best to keep the tears brimming in his eyes from falling. This isn’t the place; this isn’t even the time. Not yet - he has to continuously remind himself of that. So, he only squints them away and smiles even bigger as he proudly says, “Aurora.”

Aurora. That’s the little girl’s name. Hongjoong hopes this would at least remind Yunho of something.

And Yunho does dramatically gasp at her name (and Aurora smiles wider at this, proudly wrapping his arms around his father’s neck when she does). “That’s so cute! We have little cupcakes with the same name!”

_Of course, they do._

“My favorite!” Aurora yelps, little hands in fists being raised above her head before they fall flat on Hongjoong’s red head.

Yunho laughs sweetly at her. “Would you like some of that? Yeah?” he asks with bright eyes and she nods. “So, is that all you’ll be ordering?” This time, he turns to Hongjoong, who shakes his head no.

“The usual, please,” Hongjoong orders, in somewhat a challenging tone. But, when Yunho slightly tilts his head in confusion, he feels as if he can only laugh. That’s all he could do at the moment for the broken pieces of his heart - he could only laugh.

“Three cupcakes, one strawberry bavarian, one venti cup of americano.” That’s Hongjoong’s usual. They have always been.

He stands there and watches the blue-haired boy write his orders down on a piece of paper, like he has always been even on the past Fridays. It is as if he always has to write them down and as if he still has to even after hearing the same thing every damn Friday.

Hongjoong understands, though. He really has to.

“Name, sir?” Yunho looks up from the piece of paper to the red-haired boy, who, in his eyes, is a total stranger.

But, the rose-colored stranger can only smile it off, like he always does whenever he says, “Hongjoong. That’s my name.”

Yunho nods, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his lips as he writes the name on the cup. “Hongjoong,” he hears him mumble and how it sounds when coming from him can still make him feel the same way as if it is from over ten years ago. 

And all of a sudden, how it sounds can bring him so much, so many things to remember, from very beginning of it all up to this very day - from when he met a smiley dark-haired boy through a friend, when they started walking home from school together, when they began to hold hands, to kiss, to learn every freckle of their bodies, from when they had Aurora, to failures, to accidents, and to this - when Hongjoong comes back to his bakery every Friday at 2 o’clock in the afternoon with nothing in his hands, but a little hand of their child and a dying spark of hope. 

It’s the last spark he’s got and yet it’s slowly fading away.

“Yup. That’s my name. Hongjoong.”

And yet he still keeps on repeating his name.

“Alright. I’ll be calling you once your orders are here.” Yunho gives him a warm smile and then, he raises the red gladiolus in his hand. “Thank you for this.”

“It’s all on Aurora,” Hongjoong says, returning the smile as his fingers tuck a few strands of the little girl’s dark hair behind her ear.

As soon as their orders come, Hongjoong quickly takes them from Yunho’s hands as if he is in a rush. Then, he leaves the store with Aurora by his side without even bidding a goodbye. When he finally gets to sit in the car, he heaves the sharpest exhale he thinks he has been holding the moment he has stepped in the place. Aurora quietly sits next to him, watching his chest rise and fall in an unsatisfying manner that it starts to unsettle the little girl. Quite hesitantly, she calls, “Daddy?”

The tiny voice makes Hongjoong stop. He sits up and lets his back properly lean on the backrest as he slowly exhales. He turns to Aurora with an assuring smile. “Yes, baby?”

She only stares at him for a while, curiosity filling in the colors of her eyes. The smile she has always had since the morning has now faded and the sight is breaking Hongjoong’s heart even more than it’s already had been. “When will daddy remember us?” she asks with eyes round and wide.

Hongjoong sighs, but still smiles in the end. He reaches out a hand to his daughter and sweeps a hair off her face as he says, “Soon, baby. Soon.”

“But, why can’t he still remember us?” she throws another question again, disregarding his response.

“I already told you.”

Anterograde amnesia. That’s why. And it has always been that ever since months ago. And it has always been why the both of them come to his bakery every Friday at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, only for their usual to not be remembered, only for their names to be asked.

“Daddy is cursed by a witch, remember?” Hongjoong gives Aurora a smile, a sad one because that’s all he could ever tell her - a romanticized lie to conceal a nightmare.

“What does the witch want in return? We can give her something and we’ll have daddy back!” Aurora suggests, sounding rather enthusiastically. Sometimes, Hongjoong finds it so beautiful how her eyes would still twinkle even in times like this - times he only wishes should have never happened to someone as precious as her. At some point, he can’t bring himself to comprehend it. How are children like Aurora still so positive?

But then, he would realize that sometimes it is better to look at things in the eyes of a child.

Hongjoong manages to keep a hopeful smile after seeing the stars in Aurora’s eyes. He twists the key and starts the car as he tells her, “Maybe the witch wanted us to give daddy a flower.”

The ride home remains in silence. It’s the usual, actually. It has always been like this on a Friday when coming home from the bakery. After seeing the end of every prayer, they come home only to pray for another Friday again.

It is beyond exhausting, Hongjoong knows that and he hears that a lot from his own friends. People have had told him to give up on it already, it has been months, he has to take care of himself, too, and that Yunho would never wake up and he would never remember his family anymore. 

Hearing such things exhausts Hongjoong more, honestly, because he feels, at this point, what he wants is not to be remembered anymore. It used to be, sure. When he visited him before, he would sometimes want to shake Yunho off until he realizes, until he remembers. But, the more the Fridays that passed, the more the changes he has had in how he perceives things.

All he wants this time is for Yunho to be happy. That’s all. And he seems very happy already working in a bakery, doing pastries, and baking stuff Hongjoong wishes he had learnt with him before.

It is all he wanted, all he prays for. It still breaks his heart when Yunho asks for his name, but it heals anyway in the end as soon as Yunho smiles. His own happiness has always been so healing. And that’s all he’s always wanted. Him waking up and remembering everything should only be as simple as a bonus. A miraculous bonus.

Hongjoong puts the car in a halt as they have finally reached the apartment. With the take-out order in his hand, he gets out at the same time the little girl does. Then, they go up to their room, A23, where Aurora rushes through the kitchen to enjoy her little aurora cupcakes.

She climbs up the stool and sits on it, sways her legs excitedly as she watches her dad place their orders on the counter.

“Three cupcakes,” Hongjoong begins to enumerate while he sets out the plate with three little cupcakes in blue on the table. Aurora squeals, dragging the plate to her and begins to devour it, a huge smile on her face.

“One venti cup americano,” he says to himself, excitement audible in his tone. He raises the cup to the level of his eyes, so he can admire the way Yunho writes his name and the little hearts next to it, exactly the same way he always does on his coffee cup every morning.

“And one strawberry bavarian.” Finally, Hongjoong takes the last food out of the brown paper bag. He raises his eyebrows in surprise when he notices there isn’t one strawberry bavarian, but _two._

“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Aurora questions, her mouth full and lips covered in chocolate.

“I think your daddy made a mistake,” Hongjoong laughs as he sets the bavarians down on the counter, finding it quite adorable for Yunho to give an extra bavarian by accident. He has been ordering from the bakery for years; this has never happened before.

But, when Hongjoong takes another look through the paper bag, he notices a small piece of paper, the same paper Yunho wrote their orders on. He takes it out, confused, and reads the letters written in a very familiar way:

_Hongjoong. Red hair. With a cute little dark-haired girl named Aurora._

_You said “the usual” today. Im sorry if i cant remember T_T but i shall remember your very beautiful girl and the very beautiful flower you gave me AND ! your very beautiful smile. so here’s an extra bavarian and please smile more :)_

_-Yunho. Blue haired._


End file.
